Potential Job Facilitation Benefits of “Water Cooler” Conversations: The Importance of Social Interactions in the Workplace

This study looked at the extent to which personality and cultural factors predicted participants’ perceptions of the importance private interactions played in the workplace. The 134 participants read a vignette (where a new employee socially interacted at low or high levels with co-workers) and completed the Big Five Inventory, Social Axioms Survey, and questions concerning expected workplace experiences. Results indicated employees who engaged in high levels of private interaction with co-workers were expected to be better liked, to receive better performance evaluations, were more likely to receive co-worker assistance, and were thought to be more likely chosen for future projects. However, the personality and social axiom variables studied did not significantly interact with social interaction to influence expectations of workplace outcomes.     

Examining the relationship between skilled music training and attention

While many aspects of cognition have been investigated in relation to skilled music training, surprisingly little work has examined the connection between music training and attentional abilities. The present study investigated the performance of skilled musicians on cognitively demanding sustained attention tasks, measuring both temporal and visual discrimination over a prolonged duration. Participants with extensive formal music training were found to have superior performance on a temporal discrimination task, but not a visual discrimination task, compared to participants with no music training. In addition, no differences were found between groups in vigilance decrement in either type of task. Although no differences were evident in vigilance per se, the results indicate that performance in an attention-demanding temporal discrimination task was superior in individuals with extensive music training. We speculate that this basic cognitive ability may contribute to advantages that musicians show in other cognitive measures.     

Choosing housemates and justifying age,gender, and ethnic discrimination

This study examines the explanations and justifications offered by those engaged in selecting housemates. The rationale for the research follows the recent housing demographic, whereby shared living has become increasingly popular among young adults in Western countries. This study sought to address the surprising lacuna in the extant research through the application of discursive psychology to understanding prejudice and discrimination within the context of contemporary social and political sanctions against openly discussing prejudice. Data were drawn from interviews with young New Zealanders aged from early twenties to early thirties who were experienced with house sharing. Detailed results are presented involving discrimination based on age, gender, and ethnicity. The study found that rigid narrow preferences were stated with respect to age, gender was less important, and ethnicity was talked about cautiously, especially if there was the possibility of significant cultural differences or language barriers.     

USING COMPLEX AUDITORY—VISUAL SAMPLES TO PRODUCE EMERGENT RELATIONS IN CHILDREN WITH AUTISM

Six participants with autism learned conditional relations between complex auditory‐visual sample stimuli (dictated words and pictures) and simple visual comparisons (printed words) using matching‐to‐sample training procedures. Pre‐ and posttests examined potential stimulus control by each element of the complex sample when presented individually and emergence of additional conditional relations and oral labeling. Tests revealed class‐consistent performance for all participants following training.     

Why pigeons say what they do: reinforcer magnitude and response requirement effects on say responding in say-do correspondence

The effects of reinforcer magnitude and response requirement on pigeons' say choices in an experimental homologue of human say-do correspondence were assessed in two experiments. The procedure was similar to a conditional discrimination procedure except the pigeons chose both a sample stimulus (the say component) and a comparison stimulus that corresponded to it (the do component). Correspondence was trained on red, green, and white key colors before the duration of food presentations following correspondence on each key color (Experiment 1) and the number of key pecks required as the say response on each key color (Experiment 2) were manipulated in an attempt to influence the initial say response. The frequency of say responses on each key color coincided with programmed changes in the duration of food presentations and the key-peck requirements assigned to each key color. Correspondence accuracy remained stable in all conditions, even those in which the say responding occurred primarily on two of the three key colors. Implications for human behavior are discussed.